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Saturday, March 1, 2014

Gold Disc Awards 2014 winners announced

Japanese girl group AKB48 and boy band One Direction won as Artists of the Year at the recently concluded Japan Gold Disc Awards 2014.

Several K-pop artists also emerged as winners in the prestigious awards, including TVXQ, Girls’ Generation and BAP.

The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) picked the category winners based on music sales from Nov. 21, 2012 to Dec. 31, 2013.

AKB48 won for Japanese music and One Direction won for western music. According to RIAJ, AKB48 sold 306,829 albums, 9.91 million singles, 750,771 music videos and 4 million music downloads during the period.

In comparison, One Direction sold 672,701 albums, 45,398 singles, 49,455 music videos and 1.39 million music downloads.

Boy band TVXQ won the Best Asian Artist, Album of the Year (Asia), Best 3 Albums (Asia), Song of the Year by Download and Best Music Video.

The RIAJ quoted TVXQ’s Jung Yunho as saying, “I am very happy that TVXQ’s album ‘TIME’ has won the Gold Disc Awards. Thanks to everyone for their support. I will continue to work harder.”

Shim Changmin, on the other hand, said, “I am very grateful to everyone for making it possible to win the prize. In 2014, we will work hard. Thank you for your support.”

Girls’ Generation won two awards in the Best 3 Albums (Asia) category for “Girls Generation II: Girls & Peace” and “Love & Peace.”

Korean boy band BAP won the New Artist of the Year (Asia) and Best 3 New Artists (Asia) along with Korea’s Seo In Guk and Taiwanese singer Lin Yuchun.

AKB48, One Direction and TVXQ also won the Album of the Year awards for Japanese, western and Asian music, respectively.